Lateef shifted to Bombay (now Mumbai) and started his career with Bombay Talkies, a noted film studio of Hindi film industry, where he wrote dialogues for Ashok Kumar-starrer, Naya Sansar (1941), followed by Amiya Chakravarty's Anjaan (1941) and Gyan Mukherjee's Jhoola (1941). This led to his directorial debut with Ziddi (1948), on a story by Ismat Chughtai. The film also established the career of actor Dev Anand. [3] The husband wife duo worked together on many films, where Ismat was sometimes a scenarist, a writer or at times even producer.